Tag: Government

High Speed 2 – A whole fleet of opportunities

By on • ( Leave a comment )

railway-673513_1920

Unless you have been living under a railway bridge for the last 10 years, you will know that in 2010 the UK Government approved the plan to create High Speed 2 (HS2): a high speed railway from London to Manchester/Leeds.

Off the rails? Most definitely on. HS2 will shrink the travel time for many commuters and travellers between the cities in the Midlands and London, and for freight by improving lead times on deliveries, that in turn improves customer satisfaction (railtechnologymagazine.com).

HS2 will be one of the most ambitious projects undertaken in this country in recent years. The venture will create tens of thousands of jobs and generate billions of pounds worth of contract opportunities for suppliers in many fields. With 2026 the deadline date for HS2, what have we seen so far in terms of opportunities?

A tender has just been published looking for a supplier to provide them with 54 new high-speed trains along with maintenance, servicing and refurbishment for an initial 12-year period.  This tender is worth £2.75 billion and has the option to be extended for the entire design life of the trains. Continue reading “High Speed 2 – A whole fleet of opportunities”

Millstream to exhibit at national NHS Confederation Conference in Liverpool

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Reform and financial challenges on the agenda

Leading e-procurement services provider Millstream is to exhibit at the NHS Confederation annual conference next week, when NHS reform and its financial challenges will be on the agenda.

The NHS Confederation is the membership body for all organisations that commission and provide NHS services and its annual conference and exhibition is being held at the ACC Liverpool from June 5-7.

download-banner-13-250-245

Millstream runs the mytenders and Tenders Direct websites, which allow public sector organisations to publish tenders and private sector companies to bid for new business, as well as national procurement portals for Scotland, Wales and Norway.

Like local authorities, transport operators and other public bodies, NHS trusts are bound by strict rules on procurement, which affect every purchasing decision made in the public sector.

A growing number of UK public authorities now handle tendering electronically in order to comply with the latest European Union legislation – and save both money and time – and the EU is proposing to make electronic tendering compulsory in the next few years. Continue reading “Millstream to exhibit at national NHS Confederation Conference in Liverpool”

Remedies Directive Loophole – Courts Lift Suspensions for Contract

By on • ( Leave a comment )

A colleague of mine recently sent me an article about authorities who have been permitted to proceed with contracts after being challenged by a supplier.  Now, if you remember one of my more recent posts, A Slap on The Wrist for Authorities I discussed (in short) how more authorities are being pulled up for their actions when awarding contracts  unfairly and what you could do as a supplier, I believe my exact words were, “just by making a formal complaint you can put a hiatus on the contract award”. Imagine my surprise when I read the article about three cases where the court lifted the suspension and allowed the contract to continue. Apparently the new Remedies Directive has a tiny little loophole, the same law that allows suppliers to put the brakes on a contract award allows authorities to continue the contract until something more concrete is settled in court. Now this won’t be the case for every authority, they must have to merit the circumstances, but it might put some suppliers off the idea of challenging authorities in court. The courts have suggested awarding damages may be the best way to solve the issue when dealing with brazen suppliers willing to challenge the system. The first case was for cleaning services in a college, the college fought that they needed the cleaning services to continue classes, therefore the college was permitted to carry on with the chosen supplier until an agreement was reached in court (i.e. damages). The second case was for an NHS trust which obviously needed to continue business as usual as they are dealing with people’s health, so again the NHS trust were permitted to use the chosen supplier. The third case was regarding landmine clearance in Cambodia…… need I say more?

So what does this mean for suppliers? Will any challenged authority be quoting these cases in court? If the courts feel that damages will be the best path to take when these cases arise, is this really good value for public money? I feel this loophole goes against the power the authorities were kindly given. It goes back to the same old idealism, be transparent and do it right in the first place. If any of our readers are running into trouble with Authorities, let us hear your story!

%d bloggers like this: